1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus recording an image to a recording surface of a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical image recording apparatuses include a recording head which is mounted on a carriage reciprocatable across a recording medium such as a recording paper in a predetermined scanning direction and which records an image on a recording surface of the recording medium. As such an image recording apparatus, US Patent Application Laid-open Publication No, 2003/0035022 A1 (corresponds to Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-118097), for instance, discloses an ink-jet printer including: an ink-jet head which is mounted on a carriage reciprocatable in a scanning direction and which jets ink from a plurality of nozzles; and a transport mechanism transporting a recording medium in a transport direction perpendicular to the scanning direction.
This printer alternately repeats an operation in which the ink-jet head jets the ink onto the recording surface of the recording medium while moving in the scanning direction and an operation in which the recording medium is transported in the transport direction by a predetermined amount, thereby recording a desired image on the recording surface of the recording medium. Further, some image has a blank area in which no dot is formed on the recording medium. When this blank area extends all along the scanning direction of the ink-jet head, a pass across this area is skipped because the scanning across this area by the ink-jet bead is a waste of the recording time.
In image recording apparatuses represented by the above-described ink-jet printer described in US Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2003/0035033 A1, the scanning direction of the recording head with respect to the recording surface is fixed and whatever image data is, an image recording direction on the recording surface is the same. Therefore, for example, even when an image is recorded to only part of some area of the recording paper in the scanning direction of the recording head, a pass is performed for this area, so that the recording time becomes long depending on image data.